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All in a Daley’s work: Daley Thompson, possibly Great Britain’s greatest ever sportsman, winds up to produce a monster throw in the discus and effectively win his second consecutive Olympic decathlon, but thanks to his antics-to-come his victory wouldn’t be without controversy
If, as some sort of odd Olympic hermit, you’d been living under a rock since the Moscow Games and had only surfaced four years later for when Los Angeles played host (July 28-August 12), thus, didn’t know what the 1980s were all about, 16 days later you most certainly would have done, all right. With all its glitz, glamour, colour and commercialism, La-La Land’s take on the Olympics was unquestionably very ’80s and very American; it also produced many a memorable moment and some stupendous sporting achievements.
Join me then, peeps, in this latest celebration of Olympics past (in build-up to the now very near London Games), as George’s Journal looks back on what is still for many something of a Californian dream of a modern Olympiad…
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The Magic
Having bid for the right to host every summer Olympics for the last 40 years, America was determined to put on a show, a very American show, at Los Angeles ’84. Things kicked off, as usual, with the torch relay, which impressively travelled through 33 of the nation’s states and more impressively was carried by runners on the road the whole way (something that even recent Olympics can’t claim). These Games also boasted the introduction of John Williams’ spine-tingling Olympic Fanfare And Theme (as good as anything from his best film scores), which appeared on the album The Official Music of the XXIIIrd Olympiad—Los Angeles 1984, alongside contributions from Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Philip Glass, Giorgio Moroder, Foreigner and Toto.
As to the opening ceremony (during which US President and former Governor of California Ronald Reagan officially opened the Games), well, that provided one the most memorable moments of these Olympics – nay, from all 1980s Olympics – when Bill Suitor flew around the stadium dressed in the colours of the Stars and Stripes flag thanks to a Bell Aerosystems rocket (or jet) pack strapped to his back (see video clip below). After all these years, it’s still hard to work out exactly why this actually took place, aside from the reason it looked cool, flash and because it simply could. In short, it was completely and utterly American – the Olympics had definitely come to the 1980s United States.
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The Mascot
Summing up the unapologetic Americaness of these Games better than anything else, Sam The Olympic Eagle was a bald eagle (the US national animal) wearing, ‘Uncle Sam’-style, a Stars-and-Stripes top hat and bow-tie, and was happened to be designed by major Disney artist Bob Moore. To this day, he remains one of the most well recalled of Olympic mascots. Quel surprise.
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The Moment
This being an Olympics full of colour, noise and spectacle, it boasted many moments lasting long in the memory, but there probably was one moment that tops them all, or to be specific four moments that tops all the others: the moments when US sprinter and long jumper extraordinaire Carl Lewis won his four gold medals. Lewis, surely the world’s greatest athlete (or was he? see The Main Man below), was all set to have a good Games, a very good Games, even if much of America didn’t know it.
Although already rightly regarded a great sportsman, being a track and field athlete Lewis was an amateur sportsman and thus was yet in his career to achieve the sort of lucrative commercial endorsements that fellow great – but professional – US sportsmen could boast. At Los Angeles ’84 then, he had two aims – to match Jesse Owens’ outstanding haul of four gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m sprints and the long jump, plus secure those endorsements with the glory those victories would bring. Highly impressively, he achieved his first aim with what appeared to be relative ease: he breezed to victory in the sprints and won the long jump so convincingly he only had to leap twice in the event (his brilliant first at 8.54 m was good enough to win it, he knew, so he ensured his final round jump was a foul). However, in only jumping twice and not pushing to break the world record, as the patriotic home crowd hoped, nay expected him to (by competing as little as possible in the event his plan was to save himself for the sprint finals to come; a plan that worked, of course), they booed him come the long jump’s end.
And following the Games, this along with his general demeanour helped to create the impression across America that Lewis was, well, arrogant. A guy who may have possessed God-given talent, but not much humility; he was incredible, sure, but not that likeable an individual. And the result? Those lucrative endorsements didn’t come his way. Yet, more success at more Olympics did – he ended up winning a total nine golds at the ’84, ’88, ’92 and ’96 Games. Likeable or not, Carl Lewis was an amazing athlete.
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Faster, higher, wheatier: Carl Lewis celebrates one of his four gold medal wins with a giant flag (left), national heroine Mary Lou Retton appears on a Wheaties cereal box following her triumph (middle) and Edwin Moses decimates the field in the 400m Hurdles final (right)
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The Main Man
Daley Thompson ~ many would say Carl Lewis was surely the man of these Games (and he probably really was), but I’m going to be all parochial and pick a Brit for that honour – so shoot me. Having already won the decathlon by a figurative (and, in at least one track event, seemingly literal) country mile at Moscow ’80, the pressure was on Thompson to do the truly impressive and utterly unforgettable – retain his title four years later. Not that you’d know it to look at and hear him, though.
For Daley had a rather, well, unusual personality. His mixture of supreme confidence, brash sense of humour and incredible dedication to training was unique, but combined with his brilliant talent made him a devastating all-round athlete. In competition, he was simply a beast. Come the ’84 Games, he was surprisingly trailing after the first day of the two-day-long decathlon to his arch rival Jürgen Hingsen of West Germany, but this was just the spur he needed – in the next event, the discus (his weakest), out of nowhere he produced a giant throw that was six metres better than any he’d ever previously produced, a feat that seemed to knock the sails out of Hingsen’s challenge and propel Daley to victory again (another memorable moment of which was the back-flip he delightedly delivered following a top effort in the high jump – see video clip below).
So much for the competing, but as said, that was never all you got with Thompson. For some Brits, his behaviour immediately afterwards was just not on (whistling instead of singing the national anthem on the podium; weirdly suggesting he might copulate with Princess Anne and wearing at a press conference a t-shirt asking ‘Is the world’s second greatest athlete gay?’ – a jokey, but sharp reference to Carl Lewis’s lack of confirming or denying the speculation he may be homosexual, while also implying, of course, that Thompson himself was the world’s greatest athlete). For other Brits, however, his irreverent humour and naughty schoolboy-esque persona was a delight. Indeed, his Los Angeles ’84 performance was recently voted the Britain’s finest in a UK Athletics poll. There was – and will only ever be – one Daley Thompson.
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The Main Woman
Mary Lou Retton ~ after Daley Thompson and Carl Lewis, here’s a real US heroine of Los Angeles ’84. At 16 years old (although she perhaps looked younger owing to her diminutive 4ft 9in height), this highly talented gymnast became an undeniable American sweetheart when, with no Soviets competing, she engaged in an electric clash with Romanian Ecaterina Szabó in the prestigious Individual All-Round event. Trailing her rival with just two disciplines to go, Retton secured a pair of ‘perfect tens’ in both the Floor Exercise and Vault to claim gold by just 0.05 points – becoming the first non-Soviet and non-Eastern European to win the event. She also won silver in the Team competition and the Vault, as well as bronze in the Uneven Bars and the Floor events. Following the Games, Retton made maximum use of her celebrated public profile (in, yes, contrast to Carl Lewis) by appearing on Wheaties cereal boxes as the food’s official spokeswoman (see above image) and became an outspoken supporter of Ronald Reagan’s 1980s Presidency and, later, the Republican Party in general. As Americans like to say, go figure.
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Mentioned in dispatches
- Following the US-led boycott of the previous Summer Games, perhaps predictably the Soviet Union (which, still a year away from the emergence of Mikhail Gorbechav and glastnost and, thus, enjoying relations as frosty as ever with the US) got its own back and led a boycott of 14 other Eastern Bloc countries – including East Germany and Cuba, but excluding plucky Romania – and sat out these Olympics. Inevitably, this boycott diminished the field in several events – indeed, the top three medal winners at Moscow ’80 were all absent. An official Soviet statement on the stance claimed the decision was taken because of “chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States”, as well as security fears for its athletes; US President Ronald Reagan commented the fear some Soviet athletes may have defected could also have been behind it
- In great contrast to this boycott, though, amazingly these Games were the first to be attended by China (excluding a nominal presence at the Helsinki ’52 Games to which it sent just 38 athletes). The first medal the nation won at these Olympics was also the first gold to be won at the Games. China would eventually finish fourth in the Medal Table (see below) with gymnast Li Ning winning six, prove a force at every subsequent Summer Olympics and, of course, go on to host the Games themselves 24 years later in Beijing
- Having utterly dominated his event for a decade, US 400m hurdler Edwin Moses won a gold eight years after claiming one at Montreal ’76, having missed out entirely at Moscow ’80 owing to those Games’ US-led boycott
- Great Britain enjoyed yet another high-profile Summer Games. In addition to Daley Thompson’s heroics in the decathlon, the UK had particular success in athletics, which accounted for nearly half of its total medals, including a gold in the 1,500m and a silver in the 800m for Sebastian Coe (an exact repeat of his Moscow ’80 efforts), a silver in the 1,500m for Steve Cram and a gold for Tessa Sanderson in the women’s javelin (besting her well regarded national rival Fatima Whitbread in this event). Britain won a total 37 medals – the fourth highest total of any country at the Games, with only the US, Romania and West Germany ahead on this count
- These Games marked the first in which the now utterly legendary British rower Steve Redgrave competed and won a gold medal (in the Men’s Coxed Fours) – he would go on to win a gold at a total five consecutive Summer Games
- However, controversial – and often bare-footed – South African runner Zola Budd, who had claimed British citizenship and ran for Britain in order to compete during her country’s apartheid-related ban, had a nightmare Olympics when she accidentally tripped and wiped out home favourite (and favourite for the event) Mary Decker in the 3,000m final, causing her too to fall out of contention and for her pains be booed by the crowd
- Arguably the UK’s greatest Olympic – and all-round sporting – moment of 1984, though, came at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics held five months earlier, when the favourites for the Ice Dancing event Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean held their nerve to deliver a flawless and artistically brilliant performance to Maurice Ravel’s instantly recognisable Boléro (see bottom video clip). Their effort earned a perfect nine maximum 6.0 points for artistic impression and a further three 6.0s and six 5.9s for technical impression – a feat that’s never been matched. Not only did they win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award for 1984, but went professional following these Games, achieving great success and fame throughout the world with their innovative shows.
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Brilliant Britons: Tessa Sanderson throws her way to glory (left), the Men’s Coxed Four rowers – including at second-from-right Steve Redgrave – celebrate on the podium (middle) and Torvill and Dean perform the routine that would bring them gold at the Sarajevo Winter Games (right)
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The Memory
Owing to their sheer Americaness, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics will always be well – and, no doubt by many, fondly – recalled. And, in the end, why not? Aside from the Soviet boycott (which back then and today feels very petty), these were a positive, exciting, surprising, vibrant, vivid and very enjoyable Games – especially if you were American or British. Maybe just as important, in the wake of the debt-hampered efforts that were Montreal ’76 and Moscow ’80, LA’s shindig turned a profit. Cannily, aside from a new swimming stadium and cycling velodrome, all venues pre-existed (the opening and closing ceremonies and the athletics took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, just as they had at the 1924 Games) and the organisers smartly made maximum use of corporate sponsorship and lucrative TV deals, which together ensured there were no heavy construction costs and a lot of welcome moolah generated – $200 million of it, in fact; ensuring these remain the most financially successful Olympics. Admirably too, the profits were ploughed into a Southern California-focused initiative named the Amateur Athletic Foundation (now the LA84 Foundation) that tasked itself with promoting youth sports, creating coaches and setting up a sports library. The template for ‘Olympic legacy’ – now, rightly, such a big concern for modern Games organisers – had verily begun.
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The Medal Table
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | |||
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| 1 |  United States |
83 | 61 | 30 | 174 |
| 2 |  Romania |
20 | 16 | 17 | 53 |
| 3 |  West Germany |
17 | 19 | 23 | 59 |
| 4 |  China |
15 | 8 | 9 | 32 |
| 5 |  Italy |
14 | 6 | 12 | 32 |
| 6 |  Canada |
10 | 18 | 16 | 44 |
| 7 |  Japan |
10 | 8 | 14 | 32 |
| 8 |  New Zealand |
8 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| 9 |  Yugoslavia |
7 | 4 | 7 | 18 |
| 10 |  South Korea |
6 | 6 | 7 | 19 |
| 11 |  Great Britain & NI |
5 | 11 | 21 | 37 |
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Middle-distance dynamos: Coe and Ovett’s rivalry defined Moscow ’80 in more ways than one
Believe it or not, we’re less than three weeks away from the London Olympics now (a rather shocking realisation that for someone who lives in the South-East of England as I do; there’s been so much hype, it feels like we’ve been waiting for them forever) and now, yes, now this blog’s tribute to Summer Games past is entering its final stretch – the 1980s.
And the first Olympics of the ’80s was one that undeniably belonged in that era – a time when tensions between the United States and the USSR were hotting up once more, ironically shortly before the Cold War would begin to fizzle out. This reality would affect these particular Games in a way no previous Olympics had been by politics (even the Nazi Germany-hosted 1936 effort), yet they’d also prove a dramatic, exciting and unforgettable sporting spectacle for many different reasons. So here we go then – it may have been far from glastnost, but it was one that simply can’t be glossed over: say zdravstvujtye to Moscow 1980, folks…
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The Magic
For many in the West, the idea of a Summer Olympics in Moscow may not have been very appealing, but in the wake of Olga Korbut’s smiling face at Munich ’72 displaying a different, more open and positive side of the Soviet personality, clearly the Moscow Games could be an opportunity to showcase one of the world’s greatest and most fascinating cultures – if its organisers and the Soviet authorities would allow it. The powers-that-be had certainly put in the time and effort – in staging the Games, the USSR had spent a total 862.7 million rubles (of which it would only recoup 744.8 million rubles) and had spread the events across 28 different venues including the newly built Olympiysky stadium that housed an indoor stadium (boxing and the basketball final) and a swimming pool (swimming, diving and the modern pentathlon), as well as venues in modern day Ukraine (Kiev), Belarus (Minsk) and Estonia (Tallinn). There would also be a total 203 events held; more than ever before. Potentially, these Games could be the biggest and best Olympics ever. Potentially…
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The Mascot
Perhaps the most memorable of all Olympic mascots, Misha (Миша) the bear‘s popularity isn’t exactly difficult to understand – he’s basically a cute brown teddy bear. Designed by children’s book illustrator Victor Chizhikov, Misha was chosen as mascot because obviously the bear is the animal most commonly associated with Russia. And methinks it’s only fair to point out the rather wonderful irony that the first Olympic mascot to achieve widespread commercial success (dolls and soft toys, TV cartoons and associated merchandise) was therefore, yes, a Soviet creation.
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The Moment
Christmas Eve is always supposed to be a positive day, but an event occurred on December 24 1979 that would have a profound effect on the following year’s Summer Olympic Games. For it was on this day that the Soviet Union’s forces invaded Afghanistan, beginning a conflict that would drag on for an entire decade. And this war’s most immediate consequence for masses around the world came on January 20 1980 when US President Jimmy Carter – who like the vast majority of politicians not just in America but throughout the Western world was against the USSR attempting to spread Communism to the Middle East – issued the ultimatum that if the USSR wouldn’t withdraw from Afghanistan then the USA would boycott the Moscow Games. Of course, Soviet forces didn’t withdraw and the boycott went ahead, ensuring unquestionably one of the two strongest Olympic teams (the other one being the USSR itself) would be absent from every single sport at the Games.
The boycott didn’t end there, though. In total, 64 nations (most notably West Germany, Japan, China, Canada and Argentina) joined the States in sitting this one out, many of which would compete in that summer’s alternative Liberty Bell Classic athletics games held in Philadelphia. A further 16 nations (including the UK, France, Italy, Australia, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and Ireland) supported the boycott but did allow their athletes to compete – their gesture being that in the Opening Ceremony their athletes marched under the Olympic flag rather than their national flags, while at medal ceremonies the Olympic flag was raised in place of their flags and the Olympic Anthem was played instead of their national anthems for gold-winning performances (see middle video clip below).
Yet again, global politics – in this instance, the Cold War – had infected a Summer Olympic Games for right or wrong and in a way that was utterly unforgettable, just as it had in 1936, ’68 and ’72.
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Pleasant surprises: Scot sprinter Allan Wells rocks the world (left) and the Zimbabwe women’s hockey team shocks the world by pulling off one of the great Olympic achievements (right)
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The Main Men
Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett ~ were it not for the US-led boycott, the story of these two British middle-distance runners’ rivalry played out at these Games – arguably one of the greatest ever sporting rivalries – would surely be practically everyone’s abiding memory of Moscow ’80. Sebastian Coe was the best 800m runner in the world, while Steve Ovett was the best 1,500m runner in the world (indeed, at this distance and the non-Olympic mile distance he hadn’t lost a race in three years – that’s 45 races). Coe was handsome and well-spoken (he’d later become a Tory MP), while, by contrast, Ovett was seen as rather prickly and stand-offish. The mostly Tory-friendly British newspapers were therefore behind Coe, but – like all the media at large – also recognised Ovett’s equally brilliant talent.
And what happened when they met at these Olympics (only the second time they’d raced against each other in international competition) would be dramatic, climatic and surprising – in short, Coe won Ovett’s specialty event and Ovett won Coe’s. Getting, by his own admission, the tactics of the 800m final all wrong, Coe and the world watched Ovett run clear of him as the latter took the gold and the former the silver, but Coe got his revenge over Ovett in the 1,500m final by holding off the latter over the last few metres to win; Ovett actually ended third – after having claimed in a newspaper article he had a ’90 percent chance’ of winning the event (see bottom video clip for both races).
Both athletes enjoyed a successful next couple of years, but while Coe repeated his Moscow ’80 results at the 1984 Games, an unwell Ovett struggled in the final of both events and was subsequently taken to hospital. After this, their careers wound down and the rest of their lives were just as large contrasts as their athlete personas. Ovett left the UK for relative obscurity in Canada, while , as mentioned, Coe entered politics, became a multi-millionaire health club owner, received a title for his political and sporting efforts and is now overseeing the upcoming 2012 London Olympics.
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The Main Women
The Zimbabwe women’s hockey team ~ having only found out they’d won a place at the Games 35 days before they began and thus only having chosen the team the weekend before the opening ceremony, and not discounting the facts that none of their players had prior playing experience on an artificial surface, none had properly trained together before the tournament and they’d only warmed up by playing a handful of friendly matches with Soviet club teams, the Zimbabweans upset all the odds by somehow winning the gold medal.
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Mentioned in dispatches
- Cuba managed a record-best performance at these Games, finishing a mightily impressive fourth in the Medal Table and clocking-up eight gold medals. Admittedly, this was mostly due to the boycott, as six of those golds came from boxing, a sport in which (like Cuba) the States is traditionally very strong. All the same, Cuba’s six gold, two silver and two bronze haul from the boxing equalled the best ever achieved in the sport – by the US in 1904’s St. Louis Games
- Also due to the United States’ (and to a lesser extent West Germany’s) absence, European powers France and Italy won four times and three times as many gold medals, respectively, as they did at Montreal ’76. The UK too made hay while others were away, enjoying its best medals haul since Melbourne ’56, as did Ireland
- The most high profile beneficiary of the boycott, British or otherwise, could be said to be Scottish sprinter Allan Wells, who in a photo-finish with Cuban favourite Silvio Leonard won gold in the 100m; both athletes recorded a time of 10.25 seconds (see top video clip). Wells was not only the first Briton to win the ‘blue ribband’ event of the Games since 1924, but also remains the last white man to do so. Not content with that triumph, however, Wells almost made it a double in the 200m, but with just 10m to go lost out to Italian Pietro Menna by 0.02 seconds and had to settle for silver
- More notable British success came in the decathlon, which was won by the charismatic and oustanding Daley Thompson and, following on from David Wilkie’s win in the 200m Breaststroke four years before, memorably bald swimmer Duncan Goodhew became a household name by winning the 100m version of the event (see video clip above)
- Also in the pool, eighteen-year-old Sharron Davies took the silver medal in the 400m Individual Medley behind East German Petra Schneider, who later admitted her victory was drug enhanced. Out of the pool, Davies quickly became a sex symbol and has enjoyed a successful media career, including appearing in the guise of ‘Amazon’ on ITV’s Gladiators (1992-2000)
- As his compatriot John Curry had four years before at the Innsbruck Winter Games, at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics held in February 1980, Brit Robin Cousins triumphed in the Men’s Figure Skating Singles. Also like Curry, Cousins was voted the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year come 1980’s end, Sebastian Coe was second and Daley Thompson third
- Again, with the absence of American competitors, the Soviet Union easily dominated the Medal Table, yet despite its unquestioned success across many events, it failed to win in football and men’s basketball, was utterly outclassed in sailing by East Germany and didn’t wipe the board in judo – all of which were sports for which it was the strong favourite
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Brits of all right: Duncan Goodhew (top left) and Sharron Davies (bottom left) make a splash in the pool, as Robin Cousins appears on the cover of Radio Times magazine in Winter Olympics week (top right) and Daley Thompson clears the high jump as he goes for glory (bottom right)
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The Memory
Although the absence of some competing nations (in particular the States and West Germany) clearly diminished these Games’ quality and diversity, on the upside it also gave them something of a unique feel and atmosphere – in addition to that provided by their being held in the USSR, of course. As mentioned, major nations such as the UK, Italy, France and Cuba benefitted greatly owing to others not being there to compete in some events, with the memory of the Coe-Ovett rivalry seeming to define these Olympics’ British success and inevitable lack of any American dominance. However, in the end, Moscow ’80 will always be recalled as the one that the States didn’t attend for disagreeably serious Cold War-related reasons. The next Games would inevitably be very different, given their host would be Los Angeles – surely they‘d not endure any sort of a boycott, would they…?
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The Medal Table
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | |||
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| 1 |  Soviet Union |
80 | 69 | 46 | 195 |
| 2 |  East Germany |
47 | 37 | 42 | 126 |
| 3 |  Bulgaria |
8 | 16 | 17 | 41 |
| 4 |  Cuba |
8 | 7 | 5 | 20 |
| 5 |  Italy |
8 | 3 | 4 | 15 |
| 6 |  Hungary |
7 | 10 | 15 | 32 |
| 7 | Romania |
7 | 6 | 13 | 25 |
| 8 | France |
6 | 5 | 3 | 14 |
| 9 | Great Britain & NI |
5 | 7 | 9 | 21 |
| 10 |  Poland |
3 | 14 | 15 | 32 |
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Playlist: Listen, my Olympic friends! ~ July 2012
In the words of Moby Grape… listen, my friends! Yes, it’s the (hopefully) monthly playlist presented by George’s Journal just for you good people.
There may be one or two classics to be found here dotted in among different tunes you’re unfamiliar with or have never heard before – or, of course, you may’ve heard them all before. All the same, why not sit back, listen away to and enjoy this collection of Olympic-themed (some admittedly, er, very loosely, but you know) tracks…
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CLICK on the song titles to hear them
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Spyridon Samaras ~ Olympic Hymn1
Peter, Paul And Mary ~ If I Had A Hammer (The Hammer Song)
Pink Floyd ~ Bike
Simon And Garfunkel ~ The Boxer
Carly Simon ~ It Keeps You Runnin’2
Rod Stewart ~ Sailing
Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin Jr. ~ Nadia’s Theme3
Emerson, Lake & Palmer ~ Fanfare For The Common Man4
Vangelis ~ Titles (from the 1981 film Chariots Of Fire)
Peter Gabriel ~ I Go Swimming
The Pointer Sisters ~ Jump (For My Love)5
Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé ~ Barcelona6
John Williams ~ Olympic Fanfare And Theme7
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1 The choral cantata written by opera composer Spyridon Samaras (with lyrics by poet Kostis Palama) for the very first modern Olympic Games held in Athens in 1896; it was declared the official ‘Olympic Anthem’ in 1958 and is thus performed at the opening ceremony – and often the closing ceremony – of every Games
2 A cover of The Doobie Brothers tune and featuring them on backing vocals – in fact, this version was released the same year as the original, 1976
3 Originally named ‘Cotton’s Theme’ and from the soundtrack of the film Bless The Beasts And The Children (1971), this theme was adopted as the opening theme for the CBS soap opera The Young And The Restless upon its launch in 1973, then three years later it was used over a montage of clips of Nadia Comăneci’s routines at the Montreal Summer Olympics on ABC’s Wide World Of Sports programme, proving so popular its composers renamed it ‘Nadia’s Theme’ and released it as a single, which hit #8 in the US charts
4 The legendary rehearsal of the crap and/ or genius prog rock giants’ version of Aaron Copland’s classical piece in an empty Montreal Olympic Stadium, shortly after the 1976 Montreal Games
5 Released in 1984, and in a shameless ride on the back of anticipation for that year’s Los Angeles Games, this pop classic’s video features hurdlers, long jumpers and high jumpers; the song’s title was changed from merely ‘Jump’ to avoid confusion with the hit of the same name released by Van Halen just months earlier
6 Co-written by Mercury (and recorded before his death in 1991), this memorable pop-opera-crossover was selected as the official song for the 1992 Barcelona Games, during which it peaked at #2 in the UK charts
7 This piece opens with Bugler’s Dream, written for the 1968 Grenoble Winter Games, and is followed by John Williams’ goosebumps-inducing Olympic Fanfare And Theme, which the great film composer wrote for the ’84 Los Angeles Summer Games (and has often featured during the BBC’s end-of-year Sports Review/ Personality Of The Year programme)
She’s a perfect 10: Nadia Comăneci won three gold medals, delivering several flawless displays
Sandwiched between the Munich ’72 Games – and the horror at the heart of them – and the glamourous, easy to recall Olympics of the 1980s, the Montreal ’76 Summer Games (July 17-August 1) tends to get overlooked by most peeps. But do they deserve better? Well, given they were arguably as fascinating and surprising as any Olympics before or since, with marvellous highs and dramatic lows (at least after the Games themselves for the host city) the answer should surely be a resounding yes.
So here it is then, peeps, this blog’s latest delve into the archives of Olympics past – go on, read on, I guarantee (if unlike Montreal itself perhaps), you’ll regret ne rien…
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The Magic
There was no avoiding it, the ‘Munich massacre’ that had blighted the ’72 Summer Games had cast a dark pall over the Olympics. And despite a noticeably far higher security presence this time around – many would say necessarily so – and the fact Canada was selected as host over the USA (Los Angeles) and the USSR (Moscow) because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) feared holding a Games in one of the two super powers could cause a political backlash, Montreal ’76 nevertheless represented a chance for the Olympics to get back to what they wanted to be all about: great sporting effort and achievement, global openness and human progressiveness. Indeed, French architect Frank Taillibert’s design for a brand new, state-of-the-art Olympic stadium included both a distinctive modernist tower and a retractable roof whose doughnut shape gave rise to the stadium being nicknamed ‘The Big O’. Also, in a space-age-esque first, the Olympic flame was sent via satellite as an electronic pulse from Greek capital Athens to Canadian capital Ottawa – more conventionally, from there to Montreal it travelled by hand.
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The Mascot
One of Canada’s most distinctive and cutest of mammals, the beaver, was chosen as the subject for Montreal’s mascot. Unfortunately, Amik the beaver proved far less popular than Munich’s cute canine companion, Waldi the daschund, owing to the strange choice made for his design – over the years he’s been described as both flattened roadkill and a bad mullet. Poor little chap.
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The Moment
Nobody, man or woman, had ever managed it before in gymnastics – let alone at the Olympics – but at the Montreal Games that all changed. On July 18 1976, a 14 year-old, 4′ 11″ Romanian girl by the name of Nadia Comăneci was competing in the Uneven Parallel Bars and her faultless routine was awarded the first ‘perfect 10’ score in history (see video above). A monumental sporting moment, for sure, but it could have dissolved into anti-climax owing to the scoreboard’s designers having not accounted for the possibility a perfect score might occur, meaning the scoreboard read ‘1.00’. A bemused silence descended over the crowd until, after a few seconds, the penny dropped and spontaneous applause broke out around the arena.
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Legendary leg and fists of fury: Japanese gymnast hero Shun Fujimoto in plaster (l) and US boxer Sugar Ray Leonard on the way to immortality – and beginning a glittering career (r)
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The Main Man
Shun Fujimoto ~ part of the Japanese team that won gold in the Men’s gymnastics All-Round Team competition, Fujimoto amazingly competed in the event despite having broken his knee in the directly preceding Floor Exercise. He scored 9.5 on the pommel horse and 9.7 on the rings, pulling off a perfect landing from the latter before collapsing in agony – the dismount dislocated his broken kneecap and tore ligaments in his leg (see video clip below). Doctors ordered him to withdraw from further competition or risk permanent disability, one since commenting: “how he managed to do somersaults and twists and land without collapsing in screams is beyond my comprehension”. Fujimoto’s efforts, however, played both an important part in and provided the motivational spur behind his team winning the gold.
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The Main Woman
Nadia Comăneci ~ in addition to her ‘perfect 10’ in the Uneven Parallel Bars, little Nadia repeated the feat – not once, but six more times in the Bars and the Balance Beam. By the end of the Games she had won three gold medals (Individual All-Round, Bars and Balance Beam), a silver (Team) and a bronze (Floor Exercise). Like Olga Korbut four years before – who competed again at these Olympics, but was overshadowed – and despite an intense rivalry with the USSR’s Nellie Kim (who also won three golds), Comăneci became the face of the Games and a global heroine; albeit one who wasn’t able to indulge in the fruits of her fame owing to restricted travel imposed by her homeland’s government until she defected to the West in 1989; ironically just months before the Ceauşescu regime crumbled. At the end of ’76, the Associated Press had named her Female Athlete of the Year and she’d won the BBC’s Overseas Sports Personality of the Year award. She competed again at the Moscow Olympics where she claimed two further gold and two further silver medals.
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Mentioned in dispatches
- This Olympics wasn’t just about terrific gymnastics achievements, it also featured surely the United States’ greatest ever boxing team, with five of their pugilists all winning golds: Sugar Ray Leonard, the brothers Leon and Michael Spinks, Leo Randolph and Howard Davis Jr. Indeed, apart from Davis, all of them went on to become world champions at different professional weights; Leonard is now regarded as one of the greatest ever boxers, having won world titles at five separate weights
- Great Britain hardly had its most memorable Games this time out, but a somewhat unlikely national hero was born in the shape of bobbing, Mark Spitz-lookalike David Wilkie, who won gold in the Men’s 200m Breaststroke and silver in the 100m version of the same event
- Five months before these Games, the ’76 Winter Olympics took place in Innsbruck, Austria, where Brit John Curry triumphed in the Men’s Figure Skating Singles (see bottom video clip), adding the Olympic title to the World and European titles he’d already won that year. Curry was renowned for incorporating ballet and modern dance influences into his routines that delighted and enthralled crowds and made him popular the world over. He was named the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year for 1976. Tragically, though, he was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and, having developed AIDS, died four years later – apparently in the arms of famed actor Alan Bates with whom he’d earlier had a two-year affair
- Following her husband’s participation at Munich ’72, Princess Anne competed for Blighty in Equestrianism at Montreal ’76. Unlike her spouse who’d shared a team gold, however, she finished in 24th place and the overall British team didn’t even manage to finish; presumably because she was royal, Anne was saved having to face the gender determination test, though, something that all other female Olympians had to go through until 1999
- In the first major boycott of the modern Olympics, 28 African nations refused to participate in these Games owing to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) not banning the New Zealand team in response to their country’s rugby union side touring the apartheid-gripped South Africa earlier in the year
- Cuban Alberto Juantoreno became the first man to win both the 400m and 800m at the same Olympics, while Finland’s Lasse Virén pulled off a double in the 5,000m and 10,000m – it was, in fact, a double-double, as he’d achieved the same feat four years earlier. In a classic example of ‘Colemanballs’, David Coleman’s BBC TV commentary featured this exclamation during Juantoreno’s victorious run: “And there goes Juantorena down the back straight, opening his legs and showing his class”
- Soviet modern pentathlete Boris Onishchenko was disqualified from his event when it was found he’d managed to rig his épée (dueling sword in fencing) to register a hit when there hadn’t been one. As a consequence of his cheating, the entire USSR modern pentathlon team was also disqualified, which caused Onishchenko such emnity among his fellow Soviet athletes that apparently volleyball players claimed they’d throw him out of a window if they came across him
- Finishing with a haul comprising five silver and six bronze medals, Canada had the dubious honour of becoming the first host nation not to win a gold medal at its Summer Games (although the same had happened before and has happened since at Winter Games – indeed, it happened again to the hapless Canucks when they hosted the Winter Olympics at Calgary in ’88). Canada finally won its first gold medal at home 34 years later at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games
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High and mighty Blighty: David Wilkie (left), John Curry (middle) and Princess Anne (right)
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The Memory
Canada’s inability to claim a gold was not the only misfortune to befall the host city – far more serious were the financial implications Montreal suffered thanks to hosting the Olympics. After it had been named host, the city’s mayor Jean Drapeau declared that “the Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby”; this proved a dreadful tempter of fate. Five years later, when it became blithely obvious building of the Olympic stadium was off schedule, Quebec’s government took over, but to mixed results. Despite most buildings being finished (only just) before the Games’ opening, the stadium’s would be iconic tower wasn’t and its retractable roof has never been installed. All this caused the project’s costs to spiral and Montreal wouldn’t fully pay off the debts it clocked up for 30 years. All told (including inflation), the total bill came to a staggering C$1.61 billion. Unsurprisingly, the stadium’s nickname quickly altered from ‘The Big O’ to ‘The Big Owe’.
Montreal ’76 certainly doesn’t have the tragic legacy of Munich ’72, but with its dreadful debt burden, African boycott and underwhelming host nation performance, it hardly made the Olympic torch burn brightly once more in the ’70s – by the end of the decade everyone associated with the movement must surely have been looking forward to moving on to the ’80s. What Montreal ’76 could proudly boast, though – like Munich ’72 – was an outstanding performance by a young female gymnast who became a global superstar and whose achievements would be etched in people’s memories for all-time.
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The Medal Table
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Loving the alien: 30 things you always wanted to know about E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, but were afraid to ask…
You saw the whole of the moon: alien savant E.T. gives human buddy Elliott’s late-night bike ride lift-off and sets up one of the all-time most iconic images of cinema and popular culture
My dad once remarked that the Christmas after E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) was released, he saw a little figurine of E.T. himself in a nativity scene. Whether or not the bug-eyed, long-necked, goofy yet loveable alien’s presence in this religious reproduction was a knowing reference to the notion doing the rounds back then that the film was a Christian parable (see below), God – maybe literally – only knows, but unquestionably for my dad this was proof of just how great a phenomenon Steven Spielberg’s movie had oh-so quickly become.
Given E.T.‘s now such an established part of the modern zeitgeist and has been for some time, it’s rather easy to forget just how big it once was. Forget Area 51, in the early ’80s, E.T. was the Studio 54 of box-office excess. Yes, this simple family tale set in small-town American surburbia absolutely conquered the world to become the biggest movie ever made – a sweet little irony that this great fan of the flick has always enjoyed. And earlier this month, the small (and huge), but perfectly formed E.T. celebrated it’s 30th anniversary – yes, believe it or not, it was 30 years ago that E.T. and Gertie screamed at each other; that that pot plant came back to life; that Michael’s friend coined the classic ‘ur-anus’ joke (the old ones are still the best) and, of course, that Elliott and his alien buddy crossed the moon. And in marking the 30th anniversary of the ultimate higher-intelligence-makes-Earth-visit, here’s this blog’s 30 point-by-point celebration. E.T. phones home? Nopes, E.T. comes home, folks…
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1. Many feel the origins of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, with at its heart the tale of a lonely boy living with his brother, sister and single mother, can be traced right back to 1960 when director Steven Spielberg’s own parents divorced. A 1997 biography quotes him as saying that E.T. could easily have been “a friend who could be the brother I never had and a father that I didn’t feel I had anymore”.
2. After directing friendly-aliens-connect-with-humans hit Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977), Spielberg considered for his next project a semi-autographical film he’d shoot in just 28 days entitled Growing Pains, a Close Encounters sequel or a darker sci-fi project with art-house director John Sayles called Night Skies in which aliens would terrorise a family on Earth.
3. He actually next filmed the ill-conceived WWII spoof 1941 (1979) and then the George Lucas-conceived Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981). It was while working on the latter in Tunisia that he got talking with Melissa Mathison, future wife of Indiana Jones himself Harrison Ford, about the now fallen-through Night Skies project and that would-be film’s sub-plot about a non-malevolent, abandoned alien befriending an autistic boy inspired Mathison so much she wrote a screenplay draft in eight weeks. She called it E.T. And Me.
4. Spielberg loved the screenplay and, following two more drafts, a human sidekick for Elliot was removed, while a bike chase sequence and the E.T. character getting drunk were added.
5. The director approached Columbia Pictures (who had been involved with Night Skies before it fell through) to produce the new film, but the studio dismissed it as ‘a wimpy Walt Disney movie’ – big mistake! Spielberg moved on to Universal (then MCA) instead.
6. Night Skies did make it to the screen in the end, however; albeit in a changed form – much material from it inspired Poltergeist (1982), in which, of course, a ghost terrorises a human family. The movie was officially directed by helmer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Tobe Hooper, but Hollywood legend has it that ironically co-writer and producer Spielberg directed significant portions of the flick.
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7. With studio backing in place, Spielberg set out on the unenviable task of casting the film’s major character… E.T. himself. Raiders art department alumnus Ed Verreaux was paid $700,000 to build a prototype, but Spielberg rejected it and instead turned to the man who had created Close Encounters‘ aliens, Carlo Rambaldi.
8. Rambaldi created three creatures at a cost of $1.5million. This included four animatronic heads and costumes worn by dwarf performers Tamara De Treaux and Pat Bilon and 12-year-old Matthew De Meritt, who was born without legs, while mime artist Caprice Roth wore prosthetics to perform the character’s hands.
9. The look of E.T.’s face was inspired by those of legendary authors Ernest Hemingway and Carl Sandberg and (like that of fellow early ’80s loveable alien pop culture phenomenon Yoda) Albert Einstein. Because she felt they’d be so important in engaging the audience, the movie’s producer Kathleen Kennedy hired staff from UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute to make E.T.’s eyes.
10. Sound effects supremo Ben Burrtt, a master technician on every Star Wars movie and later the voice of the title character in WALL-E (2008), sought out elderly actress Pat Welsh for E.T.’s voice. As she smoked two packets of cigarettes a day, her voice had a unique quality. Burtt also mixed in the voices of Spielberg and actress Debra Winger; the sound of his own wife sleeping, who at the time had a cold; a burp from his old college film professor; as well as sounds made by raccoons, sea otters and horses.
11. In spite of the fact E.T. would become a huge success and an undeniable icon, Spielberg described him at the time as “something only a mother could love”.
12. Yoda and E.T., in fact, actually meet in the film – well, nearly – when supposedly accompanying Elliott and his brother Michael as they go trick-or-treating and hidden under a white sheet (as he pretends to be Elliot’s sister Gertie posing as a ghost), E.T. sees a child dressed in a full Yoda costume walk past him and, appearing to believe this may be an alien of his own race, turns to follow him down the road.
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Then and now: Spielberg directing Henry Thomas (left) and Drew Barrymore (right) and, altogether again, E.T.’s human leads Robert McNaughton, Thomas, Dee Wallace-Stone, Barrymore and Peter Coyote reunite with Spielberg and Kennedy for 2002’s 20th anniversary
13. After failing to impress in a formal audition (in which he performed in an Indiana Jones costume), nine- going on 10-year-old Henry Thomas was cast as central character – if not protagonist – Elliott following a more successful improvised scene. Robert MacNaughton, who was 14, won the role of Elliott’s older brother Michael, but would eventually give up acting and is now a mail handler living in New Jersey.
14. Six-year-old Drew Barrymore (a member of the Barrymore acting dynasty) won the role of Elliott’s sister Gertie after impressing with a story of how she performed with a punk band – she would go on to endure a classic child-star spiral that saw he enter rehab aged 13. She’s now, however, one of Hollywood’s most successful actresses and the god-daughter of both Spielberg and Sophia Loren.
15. Supporting players included C Thomas Howell, who played one of Michael’s friends involved in the film’s bike-chase climax, and would go on to become a member of the ’80s ‘Brat Pack’, as well as Erika Eleniak as the girl Elliott kisses in biology class, who as an adult would achieve fame in Baywatch (1989-99). Harrison Ford also appeared in a scene as the principal at Elliott’s school in which the latter is brought before him for destroying the biology class. The scene, however, was cut from the finished film.
16. Roughly speaking, the movie was shot in chronological order to emit realistic performances from the young players – this helped them ‘bond’ with E.T., which ensured the hospital-in-the-home sequence, in particular, achieved the emotional punch it does. Filming began in September 1981 and lasted 61 days, taking in locations in California: the towns Northridge and Tujunga, a redwood forest near Crescent City, a school in Culver City and Laird International Studios, Culver City (the interiors of Elliott’s home).
17. Although far from autobiographical, E.T. still took much inspiration from Spielberg’s childhood – one example is Elliott’s trick of heating up his thermometer by holding it under a light-bulb, something Spielberg did as a boy in feigning illness. The shot of E.T. hiding in a cupboard among the children’s soft toys was suggested by Robert Zemeckis, who would go on to make Back To The Future (1985) and its sequels.
18. As he had been for Jaws (1975), Close Encounters and Raiders, John Williams was chosen as composer for E.T., the score he came up strongly featured piano, harp, celesta and keyboards (unlike in his previously heavy orchestral scores) to complement the film’s youthful and childlike focus, as well as the use of polytonality (two different keys played simultaneously). Yet, at times, the score also makes great use of orchestra and especially strings, such as in the goose-pimple inducing signature theme Flying (see bottom video clip).
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19. E.T. premiered at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival closing gala and opened in America on June 11. A week later it topped the US box-office with $11 million, where it stayed for five further weeks and fluctuated between #1 and #2 until October, hitting top spot for the last time in December. By the end of its original run, it had taken $359 million domestically and $619 million worldwide, knocking Star Wars off its perch as the highest grossing film of all-time – a title it held for 11 years until another Spielberg effort Jurassic Park took the mantle. It made $75 million in VHS sales and, thanks to his share deal from the profits, Spielberg made $500,000 a day from its box-office haul.
20. When approached, Mars, Incorporated wouldn’t allow M&M’s to feature in the movie, but Hershey’s saw it as a great opportunity to publicise their new line Reese’s Pieces. It was a smart move – thanks to Reese’s Pieces appearing in the film, Hershey’s saw their profits rise by 65 percent.
21. The movie achieved huge praise from film critics. Roger Ebert said it was “not simply a good movie. It is one of those movies that brush away our cautions and win our hearts”, while Rolling Stone‘s Michael Sragow claimed that “for the first time, Spielberg has put his breathtaking technical skills at the service of his deepest feelings”. Over the years, Spielberg – and, by extension, E.T. – has received criticism for sentimentality, but others have suggested the film portrays American surburbia as dark and even bleak; The New York Times‘ A O Scott wrote in 2008 that E.T.‘s “suburban milieu, with its unsupervised children and unhappy parents, its broken toys and brand-name junk food, could have come out of a Raymond Carver story”.
22. Other critics have tried to draw parallels between the character of E.T. and Jesus Christ. Perhaps savvy of how the film’s content could be interpreted by some, Universal Pictures may have deliberately appealed to the Christian market by coming up with a poster for the flick that strongly echoed Michelangelo’s Creation Of Adam. Spielberg answered such claims in 1984 by saying: “if I ever went to my mother and said, ‘Mom, I’ve made this movie that’s a Christian parable,’ what do you think she’d say? She has a kosher restaurant on Pico and Doheny in Los Angeles”.
23. E.T. had mixed success during the ‘awards season’. While it was named Best Film (Drama) at the Golden Globes, John Williams’ score also won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA award and a Grammy and the movie won Best Foreign Language Film at France’s César Awards, Italy’s David di Donatello awards, Spain’s Cinema Writers Circle Awards and Japan’s Blue Ribbon, it only won for Score, Sound, Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects out of the nine Oscars it was nominated for. Most notably (and in a surprise) it and Spielberg lost out on the Best Picture and Director Oscars to Ghandi and its helmer Richard Attenborough, who in 1993 admitted “I was certain that not only would E.T. win, but that it should win. It was inventive, powerful, [and] wonderful. I make more mundane movies”.
24. Spielberg considered making a sequel. E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears would have featured Elliott and others kidnapped by evil aliens and appealing to E.T. for help. The project got as far as Speilberg and Mathison working up a screen treatment in July 1982 before the former (surely rightly) knocked the idea on the head.
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Publicity push: an E.T.-branded thermos flask and lunch box (left), the notorious official Atari 2600 video game (middle) and the Michael Jackson narrated audiobook album (right)
25. Aside from the inevitable multiple soft toys and action figures, cereal packet giveaways and lunchboxes and thermos flasks (see above), a unique and high-profile manner in which E.T. was publicised was an audiobook of the film’s story narrated by Michael Jackson (see top video clip). Back when Jackson was considered a firmly family-friendly figure as well as the biggest recording artist in the world, the album should have proved a huge success, however it was pulled very soon after release owing to contractual issues with Jackson’s regular recording company. It was recorded alongside his enormously successful Thriller album (1983) and won a Grammy in 1984.
26. Another infamous publicity tie-in was the official Arari 2600 video game. Unfortunately, this pretty much proved an unmitigated disaster owing to the fact the game had only a five-week development window by the time Atari secured the rights and before it had to be ready to hit the shelves for Christmas 1982. Millions were sold, but many were returned and many more unsold due to terrible word-of-mouth and reviews. Word has it huge numbers ended up crushed and buried under a landfill in New Mexico.
27. Unofficial, nay illegal, music tie-ins suddenly appeared too, cashing in on the movie’s phenomenal success, namely Extra T’s E.T. Boogie, which became something of a club classic and part of which was later sampled on a Busta Rhymes track, and the actually arguably rather listenable-to Jupiter 8’s E.T. Phones Home (featuring Kitty Woodson on lyrics) – see video clip above.
28. Obviously over the years E.T. has become regarded as an all-time cinema classic. It had widespread re-releases in 1985 and, to mark its 20th anniversary, in 2002 when Spielberg, Kennedy and the cast met up to publicise the event (see image above). When re-released this time, though, the film ‘enjoyed’ controversial updates including replacing the guns of federal agents featured in the bike chase with walkie-talkies, CGI-enhancing E.T. in several scenes and adding in a couple of short scenes cut from the original release. This was the prinicpal version used when the film was made available on DVD.
29. To mark the film’s 30th anniversary this year, it will be released in November for the first time on Blu-Ray and to publicise this an outdoor screening of the movie was shown by the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 15, some of the attendees of which recreated the bike chase sequence by riding to the screening on BMXs wearing red hoodies (similar to the one worn by Elliott in the scene), the leader of which had a plush E.T. seated in the basket on the front of his bike.
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30. Surely the most memorable few seconds from the entire movie, the moment when E.T. allows he and the bike-bound Elliott to cross the valley by making them fly and pass the moon was immortalised as the logo of Amblin Entertainment, Spielberg’s film and television company, and in 2004 topped a poll held by film magazine Empire of the 50 most magical moments in cinema history. Relive that very magic by viewing the moment in the video clip below – go on, you know you want to…
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One day in September: a hooded Palestinian terrorist during the siege of a room of Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village – it would disastrously escalate into the ‘Munich Massacre’
So, after the Star Wars-fuelled intergalactic hoopla this blog enjoyed last month, it’s now time to get back to Earth and (in the wake of the London Olympics just weeks away) the celebration of Summer Games of decades past. And following the posts on the Tokyo ’64 and Mexico City ’68 efforts, we’re now turning our attention to that decade of dubious highs and lugubrious lows, the ’70s. And, in those terms at least, that annus dectet‘s first Summer Games, Munich ’72 (August 26 – September 11), didn’t disappoint. An event most remembered for a dreadful development, it also boasted incredible achievements. In which case, one might very objectively say, this Olympics really had it all…
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The Magic
Much optimism was in the air and hopes were high ahead of the Munich Games. On the back of its Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), West Germany hoped these Olympics would be a successful showcase of their relatively rapid development as a peace-loving, self-sufficient global player. And, aiming to banish the memory of Munich’s strong association with Nazism and all it stood for, the host city had built an impressive looking multi-purpose site (Olympiapark/ ‘Olympic Park’), which included an Olympic swimming pool, a giant hall used for several events and a state-of-the-art stadium, designed by architect Günter Behnisch, that featured a roof of sweeping acrylic glass canopies supported by metal ropes. These Games promised to be open, friendly and progressive – just like the now proudly modern West Germany.
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The Mascot
Still a firm favourite with Olympic fans today, Waldi the Daschund was in fact the first Games mascot to have a proper name and the first to capture the widespread, nay, global imagination. And frankly his enduring popularity isn’t hard to understand, given he’s a very colourful, very cuddly little chap – perfectly in keeping with the image the organisers wanted these Olympics to emit. In another first, the Munich Games were also the first to debut the instant hit that was graphic artist Otl Aicher’s pictograms, used to illustrate the different events.
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The Moment
As mentioned in my previous Olympic post, US 200m medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s podium-bound protest at Mexico City ’68 brought politics to the post-war Games in a profound and unavoidable manner. The event sent a buzz around the world. What happened in Munich on September 5 1972, though, sent shockwaves around the world.
In the early hours of that morning, taking advantage of the lax security (owing to this being the ‘carefree’ Olympic Games) surrounding the ‘Olympic Village’ in which all the athletes and officials were housed, eight assault rifle-toting members of the Palestinian Black September paramilitary group broke into a room in which Jewish officials were sleeping and, within the next few minutes, shot one and forced the others to help find Israeli athletes in another room, then following another murder, proceeded to hold them all together in the first room as hostages. Hours then passed, during which Munich police negotiators attempted to broker a deal with the terrorists in exchange for the lives of the hostages (the former were demanding the release of 234 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails). At one stage, armed police entered the Olympic village, but their positions on roofs near the building containing the hostages and terrorists were broadcast by TV cameras, ensuring that not just the world watched their progress live, but so too did the terrorists on a TV in the room they were holed-up in. Amazingly, the decision to suspend the Games was only taken 12 hours after the crisis had begun.
Eventually around 10pm, following the negotiations, the terrorists and the nine hostages were transported by bus and then in two helicopters to NATO’s nearby Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, ostensibly so the terrorists could be flown to Egypt. Here though the police enacted an ambush of the terrorists involving snipers, but poor planning meant it went awry (not least because it was believed there were only four or five terrorists). A gunfight ensued and some of the terrorists were killed, but so too were all of the hostages – most of them probably gunned down by the terrorists before the latter exploded grenades in the two helicopters from which the hostages couldn’t escape.
The legacy of this shocking and truly horrendous event proved long and controversial. Immediately afterwards, the Games resumed and, although a Memorial Service took place in the Olympic Stadium on September 8, many competing at the Games, attending them and millions more around the world felt that due respect hadn’t been paid to the slain Israeli athletes and officials. Indeed, down through the years, the moment when the US learned of their horrific fate has become TV legend; sports presenter Jim McKay’s words ‘They’re all gone’ still leaves viewers numb today (see video clip above).
Moreover, almost immediately after what quickly became known as the ‘Munich Massacre’, the Israeli government charged its security service Mossad to enact Operation Wrath of God, whose aim was to hunt down the terrorists who were still alive and those who planned the act. Details as to exactly what went on in the name of this operation remain very sketchy today, but were memorably ‘recreated’ in the Steven Spielberg film Munich (2005), while the entire subject was explored in the documentary One Night In September (1999). However, away from the specific details and the controversies, one irrefutable truth remains: the ‘Munich Massacre’ is by far and away the blackest event with which the Olympics has ever been associated – indeed everything the Olympics is and represents has never been quite the same since that dark day.
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Gold rush: US swimmer supremo Mark Spitz (l) and Belarusian gymnast ‘giant’ Olga Korbut (r)
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The Main Man
Mark Spitz ~ Events competed: seven. Gold medals won: seven. World records broken: seven. The greatest performance in a single Olympic Games? It’s hard to say no. His efforts in the 100m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle (see bottom video clip), 100m Butterfly, 200m Butterfly, 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay, 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay and 4 x 100m Medley Relay achieved Spitz utter, unequivocal immortality as easily one of the greatest swimmers and Olympians of all time. As did that oh-so cool ‘tache he sported back in the day. He is simply one of the great heroes of the ’70s.
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The Main Woman
Olga Korbut ~ at an Olympics at which the USSR and Eastern Europe did particularly well to say the least (see the medal table at the bottom of the post), one Soviet – or, to be exact, Belarusian – athlete stood head and shoulders above all her compatriots, even if she was only 5 feet tall. At the tender age of 17, little Olga won three gymnastics gold medals in Balance Beam, Floor Exercise and the Team Competition. But what instantly endeared her to the world and made her a global superstar was the fact she shattered Western illusions of Soviet stoicism, as she shed tears like an ordinary girl after losing out to a teammate following an unfortunate fall on the Uneven Bars in the All-Round Individual Event, as well as flashing a smile as big as Minsk on the medal podium. And when she executed on the bars a backward somersault and a backward-release back flip (the ‘Korbut Flip‘; see video clip below), she drew gasps of surprise and delight – she was the first gymnast ever to perform either in international competition.
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Mentioned in dispatches
- In perhaps the most notorious Olympics basketball match of all-time, the United States were beaten in the Men’s final by the Soviet Union when the former, leading 50-49, were confused by a time-out at the match’s death that allowed the USSR a few more valuable seconds to score the points needed to take the gold. So unimpressed were the Americans they wouldn’t accept their silver medals
- The Men’s 100m and 200m sprints were both won by Soviet Valeriy Borsov after the favourites for the former event, Americans Rey Robinson and Eddie Hart, missed their quarter-final heats because they were told the wrong start time
- Great Britain’s heroine at these Games was Mary Peters, who won the Women’s Penthalon by just 10 points over the West German favourite, yet set a new world record in the process. A Northern Irish protestant, Peters was the victim of a death threat following her victory, which warned her not to return to her homeland and that her house would be blown up – all in the supposed name of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). She did, however, return to her home city of Belfast and was paraded through the streets , although she didn’t move back in to her house for three months
- American Dave Wottle won the Men’s 800m despite being in last place three-quarters of the way through the final. After 600m had been run, he passed athlete after athlete, finally hitting the front just 18 metres from the line and winning the race by 0.03 seconds
- Equestrian Team Eventing gold went to Great Britain, whose team included Mark Phillips, husband (at the time) of Princess Anne, who would go on to compete in equestrianism herself at the next Olympics, and father of Zara Phillips who will compete in the same sport at this summer’s Games
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Glory and failure: pentathlete Mary Peters does the business for Blighty and Northern Ireland (left), but the American basketball team can’t believe they’ve lost to the Soviet Union (right)
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The Memory
The abiding memory of these Games is – and always will be – the ‘Munich Massacre’. There’s no getting away from that. A horrendous event that the Olympics and wider culture is still reeling from today. It’s impossible to separate Munich ’72 from what took place on September 5 and 6 – and surely wrong to do so. However, these Games did throw up magnificent, nay, incredible performances from at least two athletes that will also be remembered for all times – the achievements of Spitz and Korbut will be etched in Olympic history for as long as the acts of those eight terrorist maniacs. And don’t doubt it, there’s more than some good in that.
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The Medal Table
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Playlist: Listen, my friends! ~ June 2012
In the words of Moby Grape… listen, my friends! Yes, it’s the (hopefully) monthly playlist presented by George’s Journal just for you good people.
There may be one or two classics to be found here dotted in among different tunes you’re unfamiliar with or have never heard before – or, of course, you may’ve heard them all before. All the same, why not sit back, listen away and enjoy…
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CLICK on the song titles to hear them
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Frank Sinatra ~ Moonlight Serenade
Elvis Presley ~ Guitar Man1
Sacha Distel ~ La Belle Vie2
Michael Crawford, Barbra Streisand and Cast ~ Put On Your Sunday Clothes3
Bob Seger ~ 2 + 2 = ?
King Crimson ~ 21st Century Schizoid Man
Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell ~ Dida
Kool & The Gang ~ Summer Madness
Dire Straits ~ Lady Writer
Olivia Newton-John ~ Physical4
Alessi Brothers ~ Savin’ The Day5
The Human League ~ Human
Howard Shore ~ Moonlight Serenade (from the 1988 film Big)
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1 This unique performance is from Elvis’s televised Comeback Special (1968)
2 The master crooner’s French-language take on the ‘Great American Songbook’ standard The Good Life, as featured on a Brigitte Bardot-hosted TV show from 1968
3 From the Hollywood adaptation of the musical Hello, Dolly! (1969) and memorably featured in the Pixar modern classic WALL-E (2008)
4 Owing to the homosexual-inferred twist at the end of this video, it was originally cut by MTV and banned by broadcasters in the UK and Canada
5 From the soundtrack of the brilliant ’80s blockbuster that is Ghostbusters (1984)
(Attack Of The Clones) Directed by: George Lucas; Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L Jackson, Christopher Lee, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz (voice); Screenplay by: George Lucas and Jonathan Hales; US; 142 minutes; Colour; Certificate: U
It must have been love, but it’s over now, sang Roxette at the end of 1990’s Pygmaliaon-esque sleeper hit Pretty Woman; it must have been good, but I lost it somehow. And 12 years later, many Star Wars fans were thinking exactly those thoughts (if not singing exactly those lyrics). Yes, the affection, fanaticism, nay, love they’d held for the space-opera movie series that had made more money than those cartoon Tetley charlies had made teabags was in danger of going up in smoke like the whisps of air from a whistling kettle. And those fans – as so many peeps do when they angrily rally behind a cause – blamed one person in particular for their predicament: George Lucas. Yes, the man behind Star Wars had become a hate-figure for many fans of Star Wars.
The problem for Lucas was that, although he’d been worshiped like one for two decades, he wasn’t a god; he was just a genial, softly spoken, beardy bloke who’d come up with a rather genius trilogy of sci-fi box-office blockbusters that helped shape a generation’s childhood, so when he had the misfortune of bringing fanatics of his original trilogies back to the universe he’d dreamt up with a flick that underwhelmed many (1999’s The Phantom Menace) and then three years later with the next in the new trilogy (Attack Of The Clones), which the fanatics liked even less, poor old George got it in the jugular from them big-time. Indeed, if he’d have lived in an ordinary house and not out in the desert on Skywalker Ranch, he’d probably have been letter-bombed by one or two. Poor old George – he was only human.
And because he was human, he certainly made mistakes with Attack Of The Clones, let’s not pretend he didn’t (some of them arguably the same mistakes he made with The Phantom Menace), yet did he deserve the level of vitriol he received from fans for ‘ruining’ Star Wars with this flick? The answer, for me, is a flat-out no. In fact, I’ll put my neck on the block and say I’ve rather a soft spot for it – I know, beetchawawa! For while there are big problems with Attack Of The Clones, there’s also decent, even fine things about it. No really, there are.
So what are they? As my recent review of The Phantom Menace (to be read here) points out, the Star Wars universe that Lucas showcased in it wasn’t really that of the original trilogy. It was one in which talky politics and Machiavellian machinations seemed to take precedence over simpler, more audience-friendly black-and-white-good-versus-evil. This lended the film a slow, ponderous tone, which somewhat turned both the average fan and cinemagoer off. However, with Attack Of The Clones picking up anti-hero Anakin Skywalker’s story about 10 years after the conclusion of the aforementioned movie, its pace and tone picks up too. Although still a padawan, Anakin is now 20-ish years-old and capable of mixing it with the best of Jedis and pilots, journeying here, there and everywhere in the Galaxy. But he’s not alone, though. Now a Jedi knight, as well as serving as Anakin’s mentor, Obi-Wan is no longer wet behind the ears and is full as just as many beans and just as active as his apprentice.
In fact, for me, the relationship between the two of them – more older brother/ younger brother given their respective ages than master and apprentice – is one of the best things about Attack Of The Clones. Indeed, where he was stilted and clearly holding himself back in The Phantom Menace, McGregor is allowed/ takes it upon himself to make a more experienced and confident Kenobi an upstanding, dignified hero, but also wily and happy to make his fair share of ironic asides. Significantly, given what’s happening to Anakin, Obi-Wan is our example of all that a Jedi knight should be and do – and McGregor nails it; he’s the young Alec Guinness of A New Hope.
One of Obi-Wan’s best sequences – and one of the best examples of his relationship with Anakin – comes near the film’s beginning when the two pursue a would be assassin of old friend Padmé in a speeder through the centre of the the Galaxy’s capital, the city planet Coruscant. And this bit brimming with visual and aural detail is also an electric example of another thing Attack Of The Clones does so well: deepening and enriching the pre-A New Hope universe. The Republic era isn’t just that of verbose politics it turns out, but also genuinely that of brilliantly CGI-realised advanced technology and architecture (shimmering spires and night-time neon, spaceships and speeders, clone and battle droid armies) on highly developed planets (Coruscant, Naboo and rainy Kamino) and more hostile and brutal worlds (Tatooine and Geonosis).
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Moreover, thanks to Obi-Wan and Anakin energetically engaged on different adventures while also checking back with the Yoda and Mace Windu-led Jedi Council and – in a perfect pair of scenes; see video clip above – checking the Jedi Temple archives, this flick (far more than its posturing predecessor) gives the viewer an excellent idea of what the culture and everyday activity of the Jedis is actually like. And, must say, I do get off on that. Together, they’re a damn cool character collective. Witness perhaps the highlight of Attack Of The Clones, when a bunch of Jedi knights come to Anakin, Padmé and Obi-Wan’s aid on Geonosis and, as the film reaches its climax, they all flourish their lightsabers and take on battle droids et al in the planet’s Roman-esque arena, kicking off the Clone Wars. It’s dizzying delightful stuff, all right – surely just the sort of things fans had always hoped the prequels would bring.
However, as this is a near two-and-a-half-hour-long movie, it’s fair to say it takes a while to get to its climax. And that fact isn’t helped by the film’s two biggest problems. The first is one familiar to viewers of The Phantom Menace: the casting of Anakin. In the former flick, Lucas cast child actor Jake Lloyd in the role of the 10 year-old boy who, while he looked right was far from blessed with natural line delivery; this time he makes an even bigger boo-boo in the casting of Hayden Christensen as the post-teenage protagonist. Like Lloyd, Christensen’s appearance isn’t an issue, its his abilities to convince as an actor that is.
In his hands, Anakin comes across less as a troubled young man bending under the weight of his responsibilities and far more as a whining teen who’s overwhelmed by his emotions and hormones. His lack of ability to control these emotions and hormones will ultimately be his downfall, of course, but Christensen simply isn’t capable of giving Anakin enough charisma or charm – or make him feel like a three-dimensional human being. For instance, instead of sympathising with him when he slaughters the Sand People for their kidnapping and vicious treatment of his mother, we’re left feeling he’s an emotionally unstable adolescent who requires urgent professional help. Besides this being a major distraction whenever he emotes, it leaves you wondering how a smart, level-headed girl like Padmé would ever be attracted to him, let alone fall for him.
Which leads us to Attack Of The Clones‘ second major mis-step. If Christensen’s acting chops are suspect, then the leaden dialogue he and the otherwise engaging Portman are stuck with during their scenes together is frankly criminal. Realising he needed to beef up the script in this area, Lucas brought in Jonatahan Hales as co-writer for these scenes, but the latter seems not to have been able to improve them. Devoid of any energy, urgency or electricity, the burgeoning Anakin/ Padmé romance slows down the film immeasurably and simply irritates (and that’s in spite of it being backed by John Williams’ fittingly haunting Across The Stars theme) – if the wonderful Han/ Leia scenes helped make The Empire Strikes Back (1980) fly, then this flick’s equivalent efforts threaten to sink it.
And yet, like I said, these setbacks certainly aren’t enough to drag Attack Of The Clones down to some sort of Jar Jar Binks-inhabited Gungan hell. Many old-school Star Wars fans will doubtless disagree with me (indeed, in a brilliant blog post that needs to be read, a good friend of mine argues this movie’s ponchos may be to blame, or something like that). For me, though, its bright spots offer enough excitement, imagination and verve to ensure it does shine. Give it a view again – you might just find yourself feeling like Richard Gere guiltily running off with a great looking, well meaning hooker. Well, you know, you might.
Best bit: Anakin and Obi-Wan pursue Zam Wesell through the night lights of Coruscant
Best line: “You don’t want to sell me death sticks/ I don’t want to sell you death sticks/ You want to go home and rethink your life/ I want to go home and rethink my life” (Obi-Wan and a sleazy alien give us a repeat/ foretaste of his classic Force-fuelled exchange from A New Hope)
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(Revenge Of The Sith) Directed by: George Lucas; Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L Jackson, Christopher Lee, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz (voice); Screenplay by: George Lucas; US; 140 minutes; Colour; Certificate: 12 (UK)
So it comes down to this. In 2005, after nearly five hours of cinematic CGI-driven supposed drivel, many an underwhelmed Star Wars fan awaited the climax of the prequel trilogy in the shape of Revenge Of The Sith. And, after five-and-a-half posts of cinematic-related probable drivel, this blog’s Star Wars season reaches its finale with this review of that very film. But was the wait worth it, did the movie ‘redeem’ the trilogy’s first two flicks? And will this review be a fitting send-off of this blog’s celebration of The ‘Wars? Well, I can’t answer the second question (that’s very much down to your opinion), but as this is a review, I can certainly answer the first question. And my answer is…
… yes. Like the contents of a tin of Ronseal varnish, Revenge Of The Sith did exactly what it said on the tin – or to be exact, precisely what it was supposed to do. You may already have gathered from my reviews of the previous pair of prequels, as a casual Star Wars fan I’m not averse to the second trilogy; indeed, I believe they contain enough good things to ensure worthwhile not just their making, but also their standing alongside the original trilogy and not looking like a shunned poor relation. And the best of those good things lie in Revenge Of The Sith.
This movie is one of the best of the six Star Wars flicks; it’s not as good as A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back, but for me betters not just its trilogy counterparts but also Return Of The Jedi. Yes, really. The reason is that, finally in this flick, writer-director George Lucas goes for it in the prequels. In fact, he goes for it like a Jedi knight packing a lightsaber in either hand – and both of ’em boasting brazenly brilliant purple beams.
Take the plotting and pacing. Unlike the plodding ponderousness that plagues both The Phantom Menace and too much of Attack Of The Clones, Revenge Of The Sith whips along. In fact, the action – both its actual action sequences (breathless all of ’em) and its plot-developing dialogue-driven scenes – pass by faster than their equivalents in any of the first trilogy’s films. As if realising that the immediately preceding film only took the story up to the start of the Clone Wars, thus this one was burdened with delivering practically the whole of Anakin Skywalker’s fall from a Jedi version of Prince William to a nightmarish Sith take on Prince Harry (ie Darth Vader), Lucas crams a hell of lot of plot and action into the two-hours-and-20-minute running time (maybe a little too much?). But after the, at best leisureliness, at worst lethargy of the previous two prequels, it comes as a welcome and necessary shot in the trademark Skywalker cyborg arm.
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Necessary? Yes. Because for it to work at all effectively, Revenge Of The Sith has to be brimming with adrenaline, and has to pass that on to the audience – and it is and does. Sure, Hayden Christensen’s performance is still as wooden as the entire Endor forest, but his most melodramatic emoting as raw feelings consume him and he sees no alternative to save the woman he loves – and, to less an extent, save the Galaxy from descending into chaotic hell – than to join the Dark Side as The Emperor’s sidekick are actually quite fitting. By now, Anakin’s totally f*cked and the role no longer needs to be delivered in subtle shades.
The stand out performances, however, come from McGregor as a maybe too complacent and ultimately despairing Obi-Wan and McDiarmid as Palpatine, who really impresses as the über-persuasive yet subtle tyrant bringing his plans of domination to fruition and then delightedly does the business as the evil b*stard finally throwing off the shackles as he becomes the saga’s out-of-the-closet villain, some sort of ebullient male version of the witch from Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937). For me, McDiarmid is one of the pleasing surprises of the prequels – a bona fide Machiavelli pitch-perfectly played, especially in this film.
However, the best thing about Revenge Of The Sith is that, unlike the first two prequels, it genuinely emotionally resonates. The tragedy that befalls Anakin and, therefore, everyone around him and by extension the entire Galaxy is properly delivered. After sitting through two far from expertly executed films, you do find yourself caring about these characters as their world falls apart around them. Much has been made of Star Wars being a space opera – for sure, backed by John Williams’ awesome scores, it shares many attributes with opera – but, being a former Classics student, I’m reminded far more of the Greek tragedy tradition. Fair dues, Anakin may not exactly be Aeschylus’ Agamemnon or Sophocles’ Ajax, but his hubris, fall and ultimate fate are no less tragic or grand than those of either of these great anti-heroes. Lucas then, surely deserves credit here.
And, perhaps most of all, he deserves credit for fulfilling one of the biggest expectations of the prequels for many a person au fait with Star Wars – giving maybe the entire saga’s best character, a fully CGI-realised and thus versatile Yoda, a full-on supporting role. Despite the presence of Samuel L Jackson as Mace Windu, Yoda’s the wisest, coolest dude in the room, enigmatically enjoys comradeship with Chewbacca and his fellow Wookies and, following on from his hip-as-sh*t lightsaber duel with Christopher Lee’s Dooku in Attack Of The Clones, this time out nearly, nearly prevents the fall of the Republic by almost besting The Emperor in a terrific tête-à-tête (see above video clip), which is interspersed with Anakin and Obi-Wan’s long awaited scrap-and-a-half set in the fittingly hellish environs of Mustafar.
The last word, though, should probably go to the film’s conclusion – a collection of scenes containing Anakin’s transformation into Vader, Padmé giving birth to Luke and Leia and her passing and, finally, the twin babies’ transport to separate places of hiding. Over the years, many have criticised these scenes for their non-too-subtleties, not least Vader’s cringeworthy cry (which would better serve an episode of cartoon Droids). Yet, I’ve always thought that they work pretty well in setting up A New Hope. Perhaps the thing with them, as with Revenge Of The Sith itself (and maybe the prequels as a whole) is whether you can follow Obi-Wan’s disembodied advice at the climax of the saga’s ‘next’ film: ‘Let go’. If you can, you’ll no doubt enjoy them; if you can’t, best head back to Tatooine and stick to the original trilogy.
Best bit: The enaction of ‘Order 66’ – Revenge Of The Sith‘s tragedy at its best
Best line: “Good relations with the Wookies have I” (Yoda)
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(Return Of The Jedi) Directed by: Richard Marquand; Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Alec Guinness, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Ian McDiarmid, James Earl Jones (voice), Frank Oz (voice and performer: Yoda); Screenplay by: Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas; US; 136 minutes; Colour; Certificate: U
In the words of the irrepressible Lester Bangs from Almost Famous (2000), here ‘s a theory for you to disregard completely: Return Of The Jedi‘s biggest problem is not the Ewoks.
Yes, although the inclusion of the ursine aliens as significant supporting players was far from the wisest choice made in the making of this finale to the original Star Wars trilogy, there were arguably bigger mis-steps made by Lucas and co. in their conception and execution of this flick, ensuring that – while it’s still fun, exciting and engaging fare – sadly it’s definitely in the shade of forerunners A New Hope (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
First, some background. Somewhat stung by the public and critical opinion that Empire wasn’t ‘as good’ as A New Hope (despite it making inordinate moolah at the box-office), Star Wars head honcho George Lucas seemingly decided to ‘give the people what they wanted’ with Jedi. So out went Hollywood heavyweight Leigh Bracket as script first-drafter (admittedly, she had died in 1978), in came Lucas on official screenwriting duties again with mate Lawrence Kasdan; out went the arty director that was Irvin Kershner, in came relative unknown helmer Richard Marquand; and, generally speaking, out went the darkness and depth of Empire, in came a more ‘kid friendly’ lighter and oft-comical tone.
To my mind, the – if you will – ‘Disney-ifying’ of Star Wars in Jedi is pretty clear to see – and pretty much throughout the flick. In reality, Kasdan was the film’s chief writer, his script growing out of a committee of ideas men (Lucas, Marquand, producer Howard Kazanjian and himself) throwing around notions to put more flesh on Lucas’s rather bare bones story outline for the film. The results, thanks to Marquand’s direction, included a Tatooine-set opening section at gangster Jabba the Hutt’s palace in which our heroes rather labour to free Han Solo from his carbon-frozen imprisonment and finally conquer Jabba and his goons out in the desert – a sequence that should be tense and exciting, but is mostly played for laughs (the jokey demise of the awesome villain that is Boba Fett is criminal).
Further errata include the featuring of not one, but two moving and impactful deaths of important characters (Yoda’s passing isn’t so much a foretaste of Vader/ Anakin’s as over-egging the pudding); Lando leading the outer space-set attack on the new Death Star as captain of the Millenium Falcon, ensuring that not only is hero-and-a-half Han removed from his natural habitat (which in itself feels a bit weird), but also he, Leia and Chewbacca are left with far from an impressive mission for most of the film (managing to break into a shield generator surely shouldn’t prove as much a challenge as it does for, by this time, such great adventure movie heroes?); and then, of course, there’s the Ewoks.
Initially, Lucas had intended Chewie’s race, the Wookies, would be the inhabitants of the world on which the land-based conflict of the film’s climax would be set, but – to appeal especially to the kids? – he and the other filmmakers opted instead for teddy bear sort-of savages. This factor, combined with the general comedic tone that burdens this foresty section (clichés ticked off include the primitive race mistaking a character for a god – C3P0 – and someone executing a Tarzan yell as they swing on a grapevine – Chewie) mean this part feels less like the ebullient Empire than Carry On Up The Jungle (1970), but with cuddly, furry things instead of Valerie Leon and the sauciness of the latter movie – not a great deal in my book.
Less immediately obvious maybe, but just as (if not more) important is that unlike the sensationally well handled Han/ Leia relationship in Empire, the revelation to Luke that Leia’s his sis and, in particular, his revelation to her of this fact just doesn’t really hit you between the eyes – and in the heart – and that’s in spite of master composer John Williams underscoring the scene with his beautifully haunting new theme Luke and Leia. Frankly, to say it doesn’t blow the audience away like Vader admitting to Luke he’s his pop is putting it mildly. Fair dues, it would’ve probably never rivalled that moment, but it should be more emotionally satisfying.
And yet, despite all that, Jedi certainly does have its moments. As mentioned at the top of the review, in spite of its setbacks it’s unquestionably fun fare. Hamill, Ford and Fisher – looking older than in the previous two flicks and playing characters that have grown and been through a good deal together – are as charismatic and winning as ever. Meanwhile, those ILM bods out-do themselves once more with the outstanding effects they conjure up for the Rebel raid on the reconstructed Death Star and the Endor speeder bike chase, while the latex creatures created especially for Jabba’s palace certainly are, to quote Vader himself, impressive… most impressive.
But best of all – and significantly so – is Luke’s final confrontation with Vader and The Emperor. It’s a sequence brimming with The Force-fuelled themes of light versus dark, and love, forgiveness and family ties versus hate, revenge and alliances forged on arrogance, greed and thirst for power – that’s what Star Wars is all about, right there. And, of course, this climactic stuff is topped off with Vader’s transformation back into Anakin; a wholly successful and satisfying resolution to the series – especially when viewed in the context of the three prequels added into the Star Wars mix years later.
So, overall then, Return Of The Jedi is a decent watch and hardly, in the words of Admiral Ackbar, a trap, but it really should be more – and therein lies the nyub-nyub.
Best bit: Luke takes off Vader’s helmet and we finally get to see Anakin Skywalker (again)
Best line: “It’s a trap!” (Admiral Ackbar states the obvious and establishes an Internet meme, well, more than 20 years later – see video clip above)
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(The Phantom Menace) Directed by: George Lucas; Starring: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L Jackson, Ray Park, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz (voice & performer: Yoda); Screenplay by: George Lucas; US; 133 minutes; Colour; Certificate: U
Sixteen long years after Return Of The Jedi, punters around the globe finally got what they wanted – a sci-fi extravaganza that absolutely blew their socks off. Not only was this the first in a brand new blockbuster trilogy, it was also brimming with a brilliant concept, top characters, thrills, spills and mind-blowing special effects. It was a commercial and critical success with seemingly every cinemagoer the world over. And it was called… The Matrix.
Wait a tick, wasn’t the summer of ’99 supposed to be all about the return of Star Wars? Wasn’t it supposed to be all about George Lucas bringing us the first of the long-awaited prequels? Wasn’t it supposed to be all about The Phantom Menace? How come – despite it easily becoming its decade’s second biggest box-office hit after Titanic (1997) – did the movie that marked Star Wars‘ re-emergence get overshadowed by Keanu Reeves doing kung-fu in virtual reality? And, more than 10 years on, does the former really deserve the bad rap it still gets?
With the luxury of hindsight, the big clue was in the title. Nonplussed, many a Star Wars fan dismissed ‘The Phantom Menace’ as a title that lacked the punch and dynamism of those of the previous trio in the film series. They were absolutely right, of course – but, really, it was a most fitting name for this particular flick. For ‘The Phantom Menace’ actually suggests that the universe of its movie isn’t that of the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance, where the former holds sway and the latter’s the only hope; where it’s all about simple good versus evil; where the word Jedi is mysterious and The Force an enigma. The universe we see in The Phantom Menace (and that of its two sequels to come) is that which came 30-ish years before; it’s that of the Galactic Republic where politics and democracy with all their complexities, potential duplicity and deceit are the norm; where the Jedis are a band of noble protectors of all that’s good and proper and where The Force is, er, a force for good. Or at least it’s supposed to be.
Put simply, unlike with Return Of The Jedi, George Lucas didn’t ‘give the people what they wanted’ in The Phantom Menace – he gave them what he wanted; the opening salvo in a trilogy of similar, but quite different movies to A New Hope, Empire and Jedi. In fact, with the second trilogy now well consumed, it’s pretty obvious this is what he had to give viewers. And yet for an audience so familiar for so long with the ‘old Star Wars‘, it was inevitably a hard sell. Why all the political shenanigans? Why does Obi-Wan have a pony-tail? What’s a padawan? And what the hell are midichlorians and why has The Force become a pseudo-science? (I recall certainly struggling with the latter question).
And I also remember coming away from my first viewing of The Phantom Menace thinking that all the political talk and machinations left one feeling like they’d just watched a cross between Star Wars and Star Trek. But the plot of this film – and that of its sequels – necessarily involves politics, as the whole thing’s the tale of the gradual fall of democracy and the rise of tyranny. Yet, the trouble with The Phantom Menace (mostly based around the discovery of a boy hero, young Anakin Skywalker) is that it’s hard to accept that all the Republic- and Jedi-related, grown-up talky guff and the slow, at times rather plodding pace and studious tone this inevitably brings is necessary – until, yes, you’ve seen the next two movies, of course.
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And, talking of young Anakin, that’s another problem. The Phantom Menace immediately garnered criticism that it was too skewed to a kiddy audience (the majority of Star Wars‘ audience had grown up with the original films, after all). And yet, ambitiously and admirably, Lucas intended the prequels to tell Anakin’s entire story, which means they had to start with his discovery by mature if maverick Jedi knight Qui-Gon Jinn and the beginning of the his journey into the ways of all things Jedi. Thus, The Phantom Menace has to feel like a ‘Disney flick’ because its main hero is around 10 years-old. Although, methinks this would have been less an issue if Lucas had cast a better child actor than Jake Lloyd. And that’s a shame – Lloyd looks fine, but much of his acting is forced and far from naturalistic. Mind you, he wouldn’t be alone among Anakin actors in that respect…
Moreover, the movie further suffers from its writer-director’s odd insistence that its thesping (and that of some of the two sequels to come) should come off like ’30s/ ’40s Saturday morning serial-esque stilted acting, rather than the charismatic playing that characterised the original trilogy. This was a major mis-step, no question. For instance, it makes Ewan McGregor look at best average as the young Obi-Wan, which is a big waste of such a talented chap (admittedly, Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon overcomes this – maybe he smartly ignored most of Lucas’s direction?). At times, the flick is in dire need of a flip, loose, cynical, wisecracker among its heroes (read: a Han Solo), but there’s nobody like that in sight in the Galactic Republic, it seems.
However, it’s certainly not all disappointment when it comes to The Phantom Menace. Best of all, it looks brilliant. With the controversial additions made to the 1997 Special Edition re-issues of the first three flicks, there was a hint of how far ILM had come since the original trilogy and proof they were now capable of realising the visual breadth and detail of the Republic era – before The Empire stamped out all its colour and variety. With The Phantom Menace this proof became self-evident – we go to Naboo with its underwater Gungan world and to Coruscant with its metropolitan high-rises and spires, enjoy the genuinely impressive mid-section highlight that’s the Ben Hur-inspired pod race and witness not just a space battle, a lightsaber- and blaster-based palace duel, but also a battle on a grassy plain against an entire droid army. All this makes for an impressive, thrilling climax of various parts (like in Jedi) – and, in fact, is just a foretaster of the digital effects-driven wonders to come in the next two films.
And, for me, the final word has to go to that lightsaber duel Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan throw themselves into against the cool-as-hell Darth Maul (the movie’s best character?). Yoda may look too young and a little weird and Jar Jar Binks may annoy the hell out of everyone (he doesn’t kill the prequels for me, though), but backed by John Williams’ awesome Duel Of The Fates theme, this lighstaber duel is pure Star Wars. If The Phantom Menace possesses a fist-pumping moment that pulls you out of all its disciplined dialogue and plotting, then this is it. It’s fast, frenetic, thrilling stuff and boasts an unexpected finish – Han Solo would love it.
Best bit: Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan get it on with Darth Maul (so to speak) – see video clip above
Best line: “Always two there are; no more, no less. A master and an apprentice/ But which was destroyed, the master or the apprentice?” (Yoda/ Mace Windu)
(A New Hope) Directed by: George Lucas; Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, James Earl Jones (voice); Screenplay by: George Lucas; US; 121 minutes; Colour; Certificate: U
I was six or seven years old and it was the first time I’d visited a big, proper shopping mall. I’ll never forget that first visit. Why? Because it left an indelible impression that came back in my childhood whenever I visited both that and similarly large malls. And the reason for that is two-fold – not only, as soon as I’d arrived, did John Williams’ goose-pimple inducing Main Theme blare out over the mall’s speakers, but also to my very young imagination, walking around the pristine, shiny, high-ceilinged and imposing interior of that mall felt just like walking around the Death Star. I wasn’t an ankle-biter out for a Bank Holiday shopping trip with my folks; no, I was Luke Skywalker, accompanied by a pirate, a princess and a walking carpet on a mission to take down the evil Empire. Or something like that.
I wasn’t the only one, though. Quite simply, millions of kids of my generation were bewitched and their little existences embellished by Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (which forever after in this review will be referred to by its original and proper title: plain old Star Wars). No question, for that we were a very lucky generation. And no question, Star Wars was – and still is – a very special film.
It’s not the finest film ever made (far from it, it has several flaws) and it’s not even the best in its series; however, it’s still one heck of an entertaining two-hour ride of cinematic hokum after 35 long, transformative years. Over those years, its conception by eagle-eyed movie-making magpie George Lucas has garnered the lion’s share of praise: the borrowing of aspects from Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic The Seven Samurai (opening the adventure unconventionally by focusing on two servants and the emphasis on an ancient tradition of noble knights), the pilfering of Hollywood Western and war movie clichés (the baddest dude wearing black and the air-bound bombing raid) and the inspiration of fairytale and Greek myth (the peasant hero rescuing the princess from the enemy’s lair and the ‘tragic hero’ and ‘f*cked up family’ motifs that would underlie the rest of the saga). But arguably Lucas’s real achievement is the execution of his conception.
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Despite the writer-director coming off the back of early-’60s set nostalgia hit American Graffiti (1973), it was far from written in the annals of the Jedi Temple that his space fantasy would seduce the Western world’s youth, become the biggest money-spinner of all-time and (for right or wrong) change cinema forever – to quote Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), nothing is written. In fact, to start with, so bizarre a project and weird a filmmaking experience was Star Wars that many involved thought it was doomed (Harrison Ford famously remarked to Lucas that ‘you can write this sh*t [the sci-fi gobbledeegook-heavy dialogue in the script], but you can’t say it’). And yet, despite these difficulties – including a challenging shoot in Tunisia for the Tatooine sequences – Lucas brilliantly realised his ambitious vision. And too often that’s easily overlooked.
His screenplay is slight and tight; there’s no flab whatsoever, ensuring that with fine editing, good pacing and more-than-engaging performances from leads Hamill, Fisher and Ford (who together possess impressive chemistry) and supporting players Guinness, Cushing, Williams and Baker (no mean feat for the latter two given their robot-costume constraints), the story whips along and is given room to breathe and grow – ensuring facets such as the Star Wars galaxy, the Rebel and Empire dynamic and, of course, the Jedis and The Force intrigue and engage the viewer, instead of merely coming off as dappy sci-fi movie prosaicisms.
More obviously perhaps are the coups pulled off by composer John Williams and those beardy boffins of Industrial, Light & Magic, both of whom have rightly been heralded for decades. Williams’ score is simply awesome; there’s little to say about it that hasn’t been before – it’s truly one of cinema’s all-time greats. Meanwhile, the ILM team that was more or less assembled by Lucas to achieve this very flick’s visual effects pull off a Herculean achievement in realising a world of wonder and detail in a way never seen before – allied with production designer John Barry’s shopping mall-like Death Star sets, of course. In short, everyone involved in the movie’s making deserve a medal come the throne room finale – and a growling cheer from Chewbacca.
Just one more thing, as nowadays it’s nigh impossible not to, the version I watched in order to write this review was the 20th anniversary re-release containing the handful of digitally added and touched-up moments (Han-meets-Jabba and Death-Star-going-properly-kaboom among them). And, must say, I think the tinkering Lucas indulged in here pretty much works and adds to his career-defining triumph (in exactly the way Spielberg’s digitised interfering with E.T. tragically does not). Yes, Han may no longer shoot first – but, just like Star Wars itself, he most certainly still shoots from the hip and scores every single time.
Best bit: The title card and the opening crawl right at the beginning as John Williams’ Main Theme kicks-off – still spine-tingling after 35 years
Best line: “May the force be with you” (various)
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(Empire) Directed by: Irvin Kershner; Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Alec Guinness, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, James Earl Jones (voice), Frank Oz (performer and voice: Yoda); Screenplay by: Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett; US; 129 minutes; Colour; Certificate: U
So which is it? The series’ biggest reveal when Vader finally fesses up? The Skywalkers’ long awaited lightsaber duel? Luke meeting and being trained by Yoda? The burgeoning Han-Leia romance? The fast and furious climax in the oh-so-cool Cloud City? The asteroid field chase? Luke eerily facing Darth/ himself in the cave? Vader hiring Boba Fett and the motley band of bounty hunters? The Millennium Falcon’s continual inability to jump to hyperspace? Or that closing shot of Luke and Leia and the droids?
Yes, which bit is it that elevates The Empire Strikes Back to utter, unadulterated awesomeness? The answer’s easy: it’s every single one of ’em – all those bits and more marvellously meld together not only to make Empire easily the best of the six Star Wars movies, but also (got to admit) one of my all-time favourite films.
And yet, the irony of why Empire hits Luke Skywalker’s errant hand out of the ball-park is that it’s effectively the complete negative of why its forerunner, the pretty much universally adored A New Hope, was such a success. Realising he’d done a superb job on the latter movie, George Lucas took a step back during the next three years of Empire‘s pre-production and filming (maybe because he was burnt out?) and surprisingly it proved to be something of a masterstroke. Lucas – father of the Star Wars universe; the story of the entire six-flick saga was ensconced in his bonce for years before even the first film – both wrote and directed A New Hope, but with Empire he gave up the screenwriting and directing duties, retaining creative input as an ‘executive producer’ only. But his picks for replacement screenwriters and director were utterly spot on.
No surprise that fact, though, when one looks at the scribes he hired. Lawrence Kasdan had already collaborated with Lucas in creating Indiana Jones and then went on to solo-script Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), while Leigh Brackett was a Hollywood heavyweight, having co-written the all-time Bogie/ Bacall noir classic The Big Sleep (1946). But surely it was something of a surprise that Irvin Kershner, who’d spent his career on the arty fringes of Tinseltown, proved such a good fit for helmer – yet he surely was.
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Empire‘s screenplay is outstanding, truly. While A New Hope‘s script was simple-as-beans and tight-as-you-like, this one had to deepen the Star Wars universe, further its three leads’ adventures (two of ’em falling in love; the other trying to become a spiritual knight), rattle the action along and – perhaps trickiest of all – push The Force into the foreground (Obi-Wan’s ghost and Yoda and all) and not alienate the audience as it did so. And, hand-in-hand with Kershner’s direction, Kadsdan and Brackett’s smart, smooth screenplay does all this with bells on.
For his part, Kersh was chosen by Lucas for his commitment to characterisation. And many of Empire‘s greatest moments, when you think about it, have his hands all over them. For example, the sassy-byplay-cum-falling-in-love of Han and Leia, while on their Homeric Odyssey-like misadventures through asteroid fields and as Star Destroyer garbage, is wonderful (funny one second, moving the next and almost tragic come the carbon-freezing). Meanwhile, Yoda’s training of Luke should be the flick’s wordy, downbeat, pace-sapping segment, but it’s anything but. In the hands of Kersh, the Dagobah-set scenes are arguably the film’s most captivating; the mystical, magisterial possibilities of The Force evoked terrifically thanks in no small part to maybe the movie’s most engaging performance – which only comes from the (more or less) Muppet that’s the Frank Oz-operated and -voiced Yoda. Now that’s what you call directing.
However, it would be churlish to give the impression Empire‘s greatness derives from just three or four contributors, because it most certainly doesn’t. As he was for its predecessor, composer John Williams is at the peak of his powers. Not content with repeating A New Hope’s iconic Main Theme and wistful Burning Homestead, he ups the ante and matches the visuals toe-for-toe with the likes of Yoda’s Theme, Han Solo And The Princess and, of course, Darth Vader’s legendary leit-motif The Imperial March.
And, not to be left in the shade, the SFX wizzes of Industrial, Light & Magic likewise better their efforts of A New Hope – witness, in particular, the pumped-up opening conflict on the snowy planet of Hoth, packing, as it does, AT-AT Walkers and Snowspeeders seamlessly and breathlessly set against the starkly beautiful Norwegian locales, as well as the movie’s closing shot – a pull-away from a humongous Rebel ship containing two of our heroes wondering just how the flick’s cliffhanger ending (how they’ll save the third) will be resolved.
Few movies that make up the middle of trilogies outshine both the first and third entrants in their series (it’s not the case with, say, either The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers or Back To The Future Part II), but The Empire Strikes Back is quite simply the ruby-red jewel set deep at the heart of the original Star Wars flicks. It’s a slice of adventure cinema that’s as close to heaven as it gets – to paraphrase the awesome Lando Calrissian, it truly belongs there among the clouds.
Best bit and best line: “I love you/ I know” (Leia and Han before the latter goes a bit frosty in the Cloud City carbon-freeze chamber)
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